A view of the Eiffel Tower. Site: Wikipedia

An international human rights organization applauded bipartisan efforts in Paris that led to the adoption this week of city resolutions condemning attempts to boycott Israel.

In a press release on Thursday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s French chapter president, Richard Odier, thanked both Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Paris municipality Republican Group President Nathalie Kusciusko-Morizet “for ensuring bipartisan solidarity against activities that contribute to antisemitic incitement and endanger Jewish security.”

The comments came after the Parisian municipal authorities on Tuesday adopted two nonbinding resolutions condemning calls for or measures taken to launch boycotts against Israel.

Shimon Samuels, Simon Wiesenthal Center director for international relations, noted specifically that the grassroots Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS, bespoke 20th century European antisemitism.

“BDS green tee-shirted squads invading French supermarkets, filling trolleys from the kosher shelves and terrorizing cashiers as they rush outside to bum their loot, is redolent of 1930’s Germany and World War II occupied Paris attacks on Jewish stores,” he said. “The call for ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ is today’s direct descendant of the Nazis’ ‘Kaufen nicht bei Juden’ (Do Not Buy from Jews).”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the SWC’s associate dean, said the BDS movement sought to “delegitmize the Jewish state,” rather than assist the Palestinian cause. He said he hoped the Parisian resolutions would inspire similar municipal efforts in other cities in Europe, as well as in North America, where BDS also has a foothold, especially among college campuses and academic associations.

In 2012, the French Supreme Court ruled that calls to boycott Israel amounted to incitement to discrimination based on nationality. As recently as last October, the French Supreme Court upheld these rulings against appeals by some 12 BDS activists in France.